The Church and the parable of the leaven
The parable of the leaven tells us about the state of the Church, and how she grows and works in the world. This parable also warns us against serious dangers in the Christian life.
In this chapter, Fr Coleridge tells us…
What the parable of the leaven tells us about the action of the Church in the world—and what she must suffer
How the parable sets out the necessary conditions for sharing the Catholic faith with others.
He also sets out the three main pitfalls for Christians represented by what Christ calls the leaven of the Pharisees, of Herod and of the Saducees.
Questions to consider:
Why do you think the Church sings this parable for this part of the liturgical year?
Why are all the readings from these surrounding Sundays drawn from the same part of Christ’s public life?
Why do the final Sundays converge around the parables, and these parables in particular?
Share your thoughts below.
This is a commentary on the second part of the Gospel read on the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany. Here is the first:
Here is the third:
The Parable of the Leaven
From
The Training of the Apostles Vol. III
Fr Henry James Coleridge, 1884, Ch. XIII, pp 211-221
St. Matt. xiii. 33
Story of the Gospels, § 60
Sung at the Sixth Sunday after Epiphany and in one of the “spare” Sundays at the end of Pentecostide
Distinct from the Parable of the Mustard Seed
The two parables of the Mustard Seed and the Leaven, which appear to have been the last of this series which were delivered to the people by our Lord, are supplementary the one to the other.
It seems as if our Lord had intended to set forth two great truths concerning His Church, the Kingdom of the Incarnation, and the working of the Gospel grace in the world, and had chosen two separate images, one for each of these great truths.
We have already spoken of the Parable of the Mustard Seed. Although that parable admits of more than one interpretation, it seems most directly intended to foreshadow the large space which the Church was to occupy in the world, the extent of her dominion, and the large range of her influence over things which do not exactly belong to or form part of her.
An image of this kind might be applied to any large visible kingdom or institution in the world. It might be applied to an empire such as that of Rome or England, it might be applied to the religion of Mahomet or of Buddha.
Assimilating power of truth
But there was something peculiar to the Gospel kingdom which was not to be found in any other, and which could not be so well expressed in the image of the grain of mustard seed.
This is the assimilating and transforming power of the Gospel truths, which work within the minds and hearts of those who receive them, to such an extent as to make this interior process the characteristic means by which the Church was to attain her great power and influence in the world.
This was something altogether different from the growth of a small seed into a large tree. Many important truths concerning the Gospel were folded up in this figure, and our Lord therefore subjoins it immediately to the other, contained in the Parable of the Mustard Seed.
‘Another parable He spoke to them. The Kingdom of Heaven is like to leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal, until the whole was leavened.’
The image here set forth is one of the change of a large mass, without any external alteration in its shape or form, and without the application to it of any power from without.
The meal remains meal, but it has been penetrated by a new influence, which has affected every particle of it. Nothing has been destroyed, nothing has been removed, no new element has been introduced which constitutes a fresh and independent substance or portion.
The leaven is in the whole mass, and in every atom of it. It has been absorbed, or it has changed the quality of every part to which it has penetrated, and it has penetrated the whole. It has lost, so to say, its independent existence, and in exchange for that it has qualified all around it.
Christian commentators
It is natural that the Christian commentators should have found particular applications for every single word of this short parable.
A man takes the mustard seed, and plants it in his garden.
A woman takes the leaven, and hides it in three measures of meal.
Each sex therefore has its share in the work of God in the Gospel kingdom.
The woman is either our Blessed Lady or the Church, or the preaching of the Word.
Our Lord, or the knowledge of our Lord, is the leaven.
Our Lord is full of the fervour of charity, He is burning with the desire of drawing all to Himself, especially those who labour and are heavily burdened, He has filled the whole earth with His knowledge, He has raised our nature to Heaven, He has drawn the hearts of men from earthly things to things celestial, from perishable goods to eternal, and so He has made us pleasant and tasteful to God, whereas we had before been like the accursed dust which the serpent was condemned to eat. We are capable of pleasing God by our faith, of gaining His commendation by our works, and by the same earning from Him eternal rewards.
Our Blessed Lady was the first to receive this Divine leaven, and in this she was prefigured by Sara, to whom Abraham said, when he received the visit of the Angels, ‘Make haste, temper together three measures of flour, and make cakes upon the hearth.’1 First in her heart, and then in her pure womb, she received this leaven. The Divine Word, the Soul of Jesus, and His Body were there commingled or united.
St. Bernard may give us a specimen of this method of application.
‘Here you have,’ he says, ‘three kinds of power. That which was not, is created, that is, the soul. That which had perished, was repaired, that is, the flesh. That which is above all, is made a little lower than the Angels.
‘These are the three measures of meal in the Gospel which are leavened that they may become the bread of Angels, of which man may eat, the bread that strengtheneth man’s heart. Happy that woman, blessed among women, in whose chaste womb this bread is prepared, the fire of the Holy Ghost coming upon her.
‘Happy, I say, that woman, who into these three measures of meal hath put the leaven of her faith, since by faith she conceived, by faith she brought forth.’2
Then again, we are told of the spread of this leaven.
Our Blessed Lady was first of all leavened, and then she sped at once into the mountain parts of Judea, that St. John Baptist and his parents, Zachary and Elisabeth, might be leavened also.
The voice of her salutation filled them with the Holy Ghost, and made them prophets.
Then St. John began to collect disciples, and by preaching and baptism to prepare them for Christ.
Then our Lord drew to Himself the Apostles, by means of whom He leavened the whole world.
Power of leaven
Other Fathers draw out this point, of the communication of the leavening power to those who are already themselves leavened.
St. Ambrose tells us that whoever has joined himself to the leaven of Christ, becomes leaven himself, not only useful to himself, but profitable to all. He is secure of his own salvation, and also that he will gain others.
But this must be at a certain cost.
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